Halberdiers are pretty well the stock unit to go with in Age IV and V as Dutch, since they can stand up to close-quarters combat better than any other unit, and if you win the battle they have good siege when it comes to leveling some buildings.

They do get creamed by Cuisassiers though (and similarly strong heavy cav), so you've got to use Pikes against those.They have a x2 bonus against horsemen and they get butchered by the splash damage, while pikes are a whopping x5 and can take down the dreaded Gendarmes before they can do much damage.

So to beat Halberds I'd go with cannonfire, or hit-and-run with skirmishers or longbowmen. If you use light infantry they'll get hammered if the Halberds close ranks. And as I said Cuirassiers chew through them in no time.

What??? I'm pretty sure it's the other way around......

Unless its 3 cuirs vs 3 halbs ....

If ur enemy uses halbs then he's either using it as a cannon meat shield or he's a noob. The only point halbs should come in use is as a meatshield for the skirms. In treaty, u shouldn't use it at all.

Yeah my tests ran against the computer, but when I put Pikeman against Gendarmes against a pro player they got slaughtered. Not sure what the difference was. His Gendarmes were at the highest level and my Pikes were not.

Halbs do alright vs cav on a cost basis. Not great, but decent. Their weakness is that they are terrible vs skirms/cannon, and have to get into melee to do anything (and aren't very fast)

To beat gendarmes as dutch you use halbs/walls to protect your ruyters which do good damage but die very fast one melee starts. It's still not going to work if the player is good enough to know how to use skirms, but it's better than trying to use all halbs (or worse pikes, which are awful units anytime after age 3, and aren't very good even then)

but you should be using church card which slows them down a bit and card makes them not as good against inf

Dutch already have a bad eco your not going to save it, by having better halbs your able to save your men (by not having to replace them every 30 seconds) your eco is actually much better

Omg i love this strat so much, i think sanderson first came up with it. 150 halb start army, 1500 eco, you smash through their walls in 3 different places and take out their factories, plantations and vills and stuff while you wall up the map.

Ruyters do not beat gendarmes without a meatshield. Two ruyters are 60f 150g. 1 gendarme = 127f 127g. problem is that 1 gendarmes can kill those two ruyters pretty easy. That's why you need halbs to soak up some of that splash damage while the ruyters do their job from a distance.

Spanish destroy French Gendarme, use their Pikemen, they have the only pikemen that can get to Imperial age upgrade! They have one of the biggest bonuses against horses in the game, and the best part they spam out! You them to take out buildings, with their OP speed! Since they can close the distance so fast, you can even use them to take out Abus Guns, since Abus Guns have bad hand attack.

Spanish destroy French Gendarme, use their Pikemen, they have the only pikemen that can get to Imperial age upgrade! They have one of the biggest bonuses against horses in the game, and the best part they spam out! You them to take out buildings, with their OP speed! Since they can close the distance so fast, you can even use them to take out Abus Guns, since Abus Guns have bad hand attack.

Spanish destroy French Gendarme, use their Pikemen, they have the only pikemen that can get to Imperial age upgrade! They have one of the biggest bonuses against horses in the game, and the best part they spam out! You them to take out buildings, with their OP speed! Since they can close the distance so fast, you can even use them to take out Abus Guns, since Abus Guns have bad hand attack.

You know what Wille

Spanish probably have the best chance vs france. So you are almost right. Rods are just so stupidly cheap that they decimate cuir with missionaries, and stand a fairly good chance without missionaries. Pikes just don't have the hand resist to compete with the cuir splash attack, If they had like .3 HR and a little more hp, hell yeah I'd use them.